RIDING MY BUS OF DREAMS

If the wet grey skies are getting you down,

and the rain is trickling under your coat, down 

the back of your neck,

if there is too much Christmas to buy

and not enough dollars,

if some of your loved ones are far away,

and too many Christmases have passed,

with too many faces no longer around the table,

if love never arrived, at least not in the form 

you had expected it,

take a little time to Occupy the Blues.

Go ahead.

Feel it all and, if you're strong enough,

widen your vision to encompass

all of the unwanted,  abandoned animals

who will spend Christmas in the SPCA,

or the creatures who live their whole lives 

in cages, waiting to cross our tables,

or the wild ones displaced from their habitats,

then picked off when they "encroach"

on "Man's" Territory.

Are you depressed enough yet?

Just watch the news.

I know. I don't do it often,

and each time I do I remember why.

The humans may be even worse off

than the animals in so many places.

And for certain, the environment

is in complete distress.

But I'm riding my Bus of Dreams

down the grey, rain-drenched streets

through the worst part of town -

where the disenfranchised

eke out their bare existence.

They remind me I have so much

to be grateful for.

I see them carrying their small packages home

with gladness in their hearts

to make a small Christmas with their loved ones.

We all dream the same dreams.

We all love to give.

When my heart aches for humanity,

for this suffering and unbalanced planet,

for the 99%, for the melting at the Poles,

I remember that even in its distress,

Mother Earth continues to love us,

to provide for us, to sustain us.

She wakes up every morning,

beautiful.

She presents us with 

her best sunrises and sunsets,

her bluest skies, her fluffiest clouds,

her necessary rain.

When I see her resilience,

I roll up my sleeves

and get ready to

begin again.

I decide to Re-Occupy Hope.

I wrote this some years ago, in Port Alberni. Dragged it out to share, since 'tis the season of giving  and I am thinking of the homeless, the impoverished, those who want to give, but have no money with which to do so. My eyes lift often to the mountaintops powdered with the first snow. The planet and its animals are so beautiful. May we humans get it together soon, to nurture and restore in response to all we have been given.